What is recorded here

Barnhill Upper on the Connemara Gaeltacht holds one of Mayo’s better-preserved court tombs: a long chamber closed at one end by a broad curved wall of upright stones. The shape is easy to picture because it is still there to be walked around. People may have built it to keep a dead person company, to mark a boundary, or to give the living a place where memory could gather. Under a black Atlantic sky the stones would have stood like the edge of a room waiting for someone to enter.

See linked document with details from Ruaidhrí de Valera and Seán Ó Nualláin, Survey of the Megalithic Tombs of Ireland. Volume II. County Mayo. (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1964) Date of upload: 2 January 2012

Court tomb, dating to the Neolithic period (c. 3500–2500 BCE). These tombs are significant as some of the earliest communal burial monuments in Ireland, reflecting early social organisation and ritual practices.

The monument record does not grant public access. Check the route and ask the landowner before entering private land.